


Traces of Spring

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Chocolate Box 2018, Depression, Established Relationship, F/F, Love, Nature Magic, Romance, Slow Burn, Spring, Unreliable Narrator, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The winter witch lives every day in her winter wonderland. She has lost something precious to her, but she cannot remember what it is. And then the seasons change.





	Traces of Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



Each day, hail pelts her cottage window. The ice thickens on the towering pine trees the cottage snugly sits between. The snow piles up, and piles again and again, paths and bare branches hidden.  
  
Under her spell, there is no source of life. All plants are deceased. The river is barren and frozen.  
  
This continent is held under an eternal winter spell. She doesn’t have a measurement of time for how long she has been here, alone. She knows the sun has set and risen countless times. The snow witch’s beautiful winter has been burned into her memory.  
  
Pure white is the beginning of the snowfall.  
  
Eggshell white comes as the cycle continues.  
  
Diamond white arrives towards the end.  
  
And then the cycle of snow recommences.  
  
Did any life beyond her own life ever truly exist?  
  
In ancient times, there once were three seasons. One season was brilliant green and yellow, the next bleeding orange and red, and her plain winter.  
  
The wind howls in the day and night. She hears it, faintly. She leans in to hear it and nostalgia blasts through every fiber of her being. The world plays these sadistic jokes on her and she can’t give in.  
  
Precious. It was sorely precious to her…  
  
She feels as though she has forgotten something. It hurts. It hurts because she thought it was gone forever, and she doesn’t want the world to her.  
  
But she has little to remember in her wonderland, and the snow witch wholeheartedly believes she imagines it. She does not need anyone, ever.  
  
The summer and autumn witches are her friends, but she cannot bear to allow them near her in this state. She can’t let them see her pitifully grieving.  
  
Her cottage is bare. She spends her days gazing out the window, wondering why she feels a gnawing at her the core of her being that she can never relieve. Spinning, sewing, crafting—such things temporarily distract her. The need to _feel_ something is too real.  
  
_When will things change? If you’ll never come back, I never want the world to move on without you…_  
  
Magical energies buzz in the air. It is too soon for next round of fresh snow to coat her ever-present panoramic view of the world around her, but she supposes she has neglected noticing the cycle. She sighs to herself at her lack of thoughtfulness.  
  
The witch wanders outside. Often she does this to leave the stuffy, one-room cottage. Her dark blue dress billows behind her and she creates footprints in the snow with her snowshoes. She sees nothing here even though she searches for her truth. The snow crunches under her feet. The sky blinds her.  
  
She is numb to the cold. It is in her blood, and she is the bleak, subzero temperature she casts to grapple sovereign over Mother Nature’s almighty authority.  
  
Sometimes she wants to cry, but she puts the long sleeve over her face. The silk brushes her cheek and she finds herself snapping out of sadness.  
  
One day, she walks under the pines and their thick needles. She brushes them with her fingers and watches the way in which her pale skin touches them. Needles sway under her ministrations.  
  
She rests under the tree, pulling her legs up to her chest. The snow witch sits for a while as a change of pace. She pushes herself up to stand and her hand brushes a round object that is not frigid snow.  
  
When she inspects it, it is fairly strange. It is in a bell-shape and droopy. The middle of it is concave and the innermost of it has a slight… This color is summer wtich’s, she knows, but the color is tender. Summer witch’s yellow color is harsh and scorching, and the color is different form the hazy sunlight.  
  
This flower is called snowdrops. But it has only gone abloom in her winter only once, long ago when she had first brought drought to this land in the form of winter. Her first winter had been the first season on his planet. It had been the winter before this one.  
  
She grabs at her forehead and winces.  
  
The snow witch is dizzy. She must go home.  
  
She pushes herself to her feet. Has she willed this into being? Has this always been here, for so long?  
  
Shakily, she returns to her cottage. It is within her sights. She will make herself a cup of sage and honey tea for the fuzziness plaguing her thoughts.  
  
The essence of unfamiliar magic catches her off-guard. It is strong, but is benevolent like snowflakes tumbling from the clouds. She glances to the field of snow in front of her that is always so drab and full of nothingness. Then, her body uncontrollably seizes.  
  
The woman in front of her is vibrant—far more sun-kissed than she can ever hope to be. Her eyes hurt taking her in, and she blinks rapidly, gasping at the sheer intensity of the woman. The woman’s hair is a beautiful, flowing light green twirled into ringlets and pale pink and blue flowers weave out of each ring. Her gown and high collar are luxuriously designed in blossoming floral bulbs and buds by the dozens.  
  
So her heart leaps, and it suddenly starts to beat. Her heart has been chilled in the eternal winter. The heartbeats explode in her chest and she feels she may be ill if she doesn’t lie down; the sensation is too real and too overstimulating to bear. Swaggering, she nearly falls, but the woman catches her, She doesn’t know what it is but it feels _right_. She doesn’t want to leave the safety of those petite arms.  
  
In her reality, the world is collapsing upon itself. But it is sweet, tangibly intoxicating. The colors are bright on reflecting diamond snow. The emotion blossoms within her chest and branches to her whole body.  
  
The world feels less grey in seconds. But it is all she has never known, and it floors the winter witch.  
  
A hand covers hers, and shock races through her.  
  
“Have you forgotten what real flowers are, Isode?”  
  
The snow witch’s eyes snap towards her. She doesn’t know how to meet those light eyes, but Isode tries, failing to manage that much with her heart threatening to pop out in pure happiness.  
  
It registers too late that she has spoken her name, and she doesn’t know how to reply to her anyway. That name had been buried in the spades of time.  
  
She can’t believe there is another woman here in her paradise of death and loneliness and loss.  
  
The world she had created for herself and thrown out all other life so this place where she had met her would be preserved until the end of the universe.  
  
She had lost something here so long ago. She had hated the summer and autumn witches for stealing what was precious to her, She had fought with them for it and they had not returned which what was hers. They claimed they did not have it what she sought.  
  
So she had sworn they would never return to this land as far as she ruled; she would curse the world with her snow for whichever power banishing the rebirth to her desolation. In that way they could never replace the season that she had seen die. The season which had been the most truly beautiful.  
  
The woman gives her a patient look. She waits, and Isode says nothing, speechless and boneless. But the woman doesn’t allow this to go on long, and she squeezes her hand assumingly, drawing her in. She encircles Isode with her arms against her chest and rests her cheek against the short crop of her hair.  
  
Isode’s eyes simply widen.  
  
“I wish we could say like this forever, but that isn’t our work. We must not falter,” the woman tells her.  
  
Isode wants to cry. The tears are too scared to come.  
  
“I think it’s time. The winter has gone over its limit, I’m sorry to say. It’s time for a new chapter to begin,” the woman tells her. A similar sadness ghosts over her expression. “But… for that, I’m blessed. I can spend this fleeting time with you despite how short it is. Let’s plant the seeds to the new future.”  
  
“Why…?” the winter witch asks. She wants to say something else stuck on her tongue, but her voice croaks. She barely speaks, and she is shocked she can respond to anything in her current condition.  
  
“You’ll understand soon.”  
  
The woman’s hand separates from hers. Isode is about to protest in fear. However, she pauses. Her hand is heavy, She looks down to see small brown lumps in her hands. The woman has similar lumps in her hands—these are life? These are truth? These are seeds to life?—she cradles like a newborn child in her palm. She looks at them with love, but she shares a heartfelt looks with Isode while she shifts her attention to her, everything about her fruitful.  
  
Isode’s arms, legs, and even her heart have been cemented in ice. But she feels like the ice melts due to the little lives calling out her name. The lives bawl to be anticipated. Murmurous echoes come in a symphony. They are harbingers ready to configure the future. Though their time would be ethereal, their beauty, their dance, was quintessential for the lonely soil to thrive. The plants and soils were one. Their joined pleas called out to be born into a vernal life and conflate into one body—the melody of life.  
  
So long ago, this is what she had fallen in love with. It was the counterstrike to Isode’s own lassitude, the bright shine that had captivated her so immediately  
  
The emotion washes through Isode’s every vein and nerve and brings her to purity and health. Those are the feelings she has for the spring witch she loves.  
  
…she loves the spring…  
  
The spring witch tosses her seeds on the ground, and she urges Isode to do the same, gently tipping her hand. Isode does and the seeds scatter in the incoming cool breeze. Seeds frolic and gracefully sweep across the land, the overbearing snow, settling down to their work peacefully. The seeds indent the snow and thaw out the crude ice and awaken the soil. The water recedes, and the nearby lake is filled. Water crests against the shoreline.  
  
There is light and the seeds sparkle. Like the flower from earlier, the seeds pop. Sprouts come out of them and buds reach to the sky. A sea of azalea, poppy, irses, tulips, lilies, and crocus bloom in a variety of colors. The field becomes a meadow, and the snow disappears around their glowing petals.  
  
Soon, the snow is only specks on the verdant grass.  
  
Isode’s repressed heartache and worry wash away.  
  
“Odeletta,” the snow witch breathes to herself, immersed in the scent of flowers, mesmerized.  
  
The past rushes into her memory her like a glacial blizzard. Except the cool breeze soothes her skin, the gust bringing in fruit and innocence and purity that the winter had in spades of paucity,  
  
Odeletta left her. She had thought she would see her sooner, but the months and seasons had moved on without her. Isode had not found her no matter how long she had looked. She had begged the summer and autumn witches to help her. They had never known where she was, either, but they told her that she was looking for her as well. It was the elusive nature of the seasons. Isode had kept on the hunt. In the end, she had never been successful.  
  
The winter can catch the spring but the spring can never catch the winter that comes before it.  
  
That was the way things worked. Time did not stand still, and the seasons could not be easily found.  
  
After that last autumn and it was her time to reign, she couldn’t stand it. She thought her spring would never return to her. Isode had resented the summer and autumn witches although they had done nothing wrong. She had locked herself up in her winter and pushed back the truth, hoping she would move on, not knowing when the spring would resurface.  
  
A tear slips from her eye. Isode is not sad, now.  
  
“It’s been a long time,” Isode says.  
  
The spring witch smiles at her. Sunlight roars out of the heavy cloud cover and dots the land with thin patches of white-yellow light. The plants that have been blanketed with snow twitch, roused from a deep slumber, prepared to follow the current.  
  
“I was waiting for you,” she tells her. “I didn’t want to leave you, but I couldn’t find my way back after the spring. When I finally realized you were here I forced myself to wake. But you’ve kept your spell strong, Isode, and I couldn’t come back. I kept calling and calling for you and you didn’t respond. Were you that heartbroken?” She holds Isode tenderly in her embrace and the epiphany of what happened in their past makes it all the more bittersweet. “I was searching everywhere for how to break in…”  
  
There is a pang of guilt. It was her, the wind howls.  
  
“I don’t want to lose you again,” Isode tells her  
  
“Don’t fret, Isode.” The spring witch is confident, her voice sweetened like honey. There is still a twinge of tiredness in her words. “We will make sure our bond is not fragmented like before. All four of the seasons will be united, I’ll see to it. I have to leave you every year, but as long as I get to see you once every year and we can share a moment together, I’m happy.”  
  
Isode’s stomach drops. But she can’t complain, because she has the deep intuition she is right.  
  
This must be their love, and her connection to her fellow seasons must be splintered and elusive, as is her relationship to the summer and autumn witches. She understands why she was only able to meet the autumn witch, and the autumn witch was the only one who could contact the summer witch. She is the only one with a special love for the spring.  
  
It still rips her apart inside that she must go a year and have a matter of days to join the celebrations  
  
“Please never try to forget me. We have a world we can’t let down, because they rely on us, and I rely on you most of all,” Odeletta tells her, and she presses her lips to Isode’s. Isode returns it. She is mildly worried about the taste of winter berry on her lips—it is all she has eaten in this place—but Odeletta’s smile engulfs her own and forgets her strength.  
  
“I can never forget,” Isode swears, gripping onto her sleeve. On one hand, she feels quite foolish.  
  
She wants to bring the best winter she can, because they know what will come and how the seasons will work. In the past year as the world had changed and been created, they did not have that security.  
  
Isode imprints the scent of flowers and grass to her memories. It is gratifying. Her heart was bleeding two sizes too big and she must not allow those shallow feelings to take over her once more.  
  
“From this day onward, the spring comes after the winter,” Odeletta promises her, parting a moment. “I’ll always come to meet you, no matter how many years pass. You’ll always be able to find me.”  
  
And they stand in that spot together, winter witch and spring witch, watching the valley and mountain dye with color. They will have to part. They have so much to catch up on that they will cherish their days together until the spring renders the winter obsolete.  
  
The next year cannot come fast enough.


End file.
